


lord knows i’m hard to hold

by likebrightness



Category: Rookie Blue
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-02
Updated: 2014-01-02
Packaged: 2018-01-07 03:09:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1114776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/likebrightness/pseuds/likebrightness
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p> Holly spends ten minutes convincing her to come back and try again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	lord knows i’m hard to hold

**Author's Note:**

> Timeline: Immediately post-“What I Lost”

Holly spends ten minutes convincing her to come back and try again. Gail’s not sure if she doesn’t want to because she’s scared or if she doesn’t want to because not giving in makes Holly’s voice get all soft while she tries to be comforting.

“It’ll be fun,” she says.

“Did it look like fun the first time?”

“You were laughing.”

Gail ignores that point. “I was humiliated. And terrified.”

Holly quirks her eyebrows, smile a little lopsided. “I promise to buy you lots of alcohol afterward.”

Well. Gail scowls. She puts the helmet back on, more to hide her blush than to concede, but Holly grins like it’s the latter.

-

Embarrassment is a great motivator.

No, Gail would rather not have a machine throw softballs at her hard enough she has to wear a helmet, but if she’s going to do this, she’s sure as hell not going to look like a fool when she does.

She lets the first two pitches sail by, and when she doesn’t scream or even flinch, she figures it’s time to take a swing.

She’s not sure how much she misses the ball by—her eyes were closed—but by the snort of laughter that Holly tries to turn into a cough, it must have been a lot. Gail doesn’t deign to respond.

Holly doesn’t even try to disguise her laugh at the next swing. “Keep your elbows up.”

Gail feels like stomping her foot like a four year old. She raises her elbows, though, forces herself to keep her eyes open as the ball comes flying at her. This time she at least hits it, but off the very end of the bat so the entire thing vibrates in her grip. It hurts her hands enough that she drops it.

“Okay,” Holly says as she turns off the pitching machine. She comes into the batting cage with Gail, who is biting her lip as hard as she can. Tears of frustration are pretty much the opposite of what she wants to happen right now. She is exceptionally thankful that the helmet probably covers up most of her expression. Still, Holly is more than the bat’s distance away from her, like maybe she doesn’t trust Gail not to pick it up and take a swing. She ducks her head to force eye contact and asks, “Can I show you?”

“You have five minutes, lab rat.”

“Watch how I do it,” she says, picking up the bat.

Gail rolls her eyes. “I already did watch you do it. Obviously I didn’t learn anything.”

“Yeah, but,” Holly smirks at her over her shoulder, “this time watch without staring at my ass.”

She turns away and starts talking about how to stand before Gail can sputter out a rebuttal.

(The thing is—Gail was looking at her ass last time. She just thought she was being surreptitious about it.)

She doesn’t look at her ass this time, but it isn’t really helping; Holly kind of has a nice everything. Gail likes the outline of her arms holding up the bat. She likes the way her hair falls over the stretch of her neck. When she turns and says, “You try,” Gail still knows nothing about the “right way” to swing a bat.

At least Holly doesn’t laugh at her this time.

“Better,” she says instead, “But you still—”

And then she just grabs her hips. Gail knows that she’s helping her, positioning her body the way it’s supposed to be, but it doesn’t exactly feel innocent.

“Is this why you wanted to come to the _batting cages_ ?” Gail says, putting as much disdain as possible into the words. “So you could get your hands on me?”

Holly’s laugh is directly into her ear. “When I want to get my hands on you, you’ll know.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Gail snaps.

She turns her head to look at Holly, who is still touching her. She’s grinning, too, as she lifts Gail’s elbows a little higher. Gail tries to stay affronted, but Holly’s face is  _very_ close, fingers warm. She steps back before Gail can decide if she’s glad for the facemask of the helmet between them or if she hates it. At least she manages to keep scowling.

“Just swing the bat.”

Gail does. It actually feels mildly less awkward, less like she’s flailing her limbs around and more like she might know what she’s doing. She refuses to admit that to Holly, of course, but the way the other woman is smirking makes Gail think she can probably figure it out on her own. 

“Ten pitches,” Holly says, getting out of the cage again. “Then I’ll buy you your alcohol.”

Gail manages to hit four of them. She doesn’t feel particularly accomplished until Holly counts it as a success and kisses her congratulations.

-

The bar Holly takes her to is a lot classier than the Penny, not that that’s saying much. It’s also got a beer list longer than Gail’s arm.

“Will I not be welcome in the lesbian club if I don’t get some weird expensive beer?” Gail asks.

“I don’t think you’re welcome in the lesbian club anyway, given the whole sleeping with men thing.”

Gail has been left speechless more times tonight than she has in the past year.

Holly does order a beer though, some chestnut colored thing that she forces Gail to try. The blonde almost chokes. She coughs for a good ten seconds, Holly rubbing her back and hiding a smirk behind her hand.

“Do you drink beer at all?”

“Not beer you have to  _ chew _ .”

Holly’s laugh is sudden and loud, like she’s surprised at that answer.

Gail grins. “Anyway, I’d pretty much always prefer a martini. What’s your cocktail of choice?”

“Vodka tonic.”

And they’re off. Holly lets Gail ask every question she can think of, only lobbies back a few of the more interesting ones. Gail admits to multiple bad decisions involving hair dye when she was a teenager; Holly isn’t embarrassed for a minute about how much of a nerd she was then—“ _Was_?” Gail snorts and Holly ignores her— she had thick glasses and would ask for extra science homework.

“If I wasn’t doing backyard experiments with zero regard for safety, I was in my room listening to all the music I could get my hands on.”

“First concert?”

“Tegan and Sara.”

Gail laughs so hard she almost spills her drink.

It’s the best date Gail’s been on since before Nick went undercover, even if she doesn’t necessarily admit it’s a date. Holly is patient with her, and finds her rudeness  _endearing_ or something, instead of off-putting. Gail is mean because she doesn’t  _like_ people, and that way they don’t like her either. She’s not quite sure what to do with this girl who likes her anyway.

As Holly gets back from the bathroom, ankles and knees and shins knocking against Gail’s too much to not be intentional, Gail decides more rudeness is the best way to handle the situation.

“You know,” she says, poking a toothpick at the olive in her martini, “balls flying at my head was really not what I was expecting on a date with a girl.”

Holly groans. “Dammit. You just put me out five bucks.”

“What?”

“I bet my friend you were too good to make a balls joke,” she says.

Gail stares at her. She’s had that blank judging stare down since middle school; it makes most people cower or at least roll their eyes, but Holly just smiles.

“You bet on me with your friend?”

“Yeah.” She sighs overdramatically. “And you let me down.”

It’s not so much the betting on her that Gail has a problem with—as if she hasn’t put a wager on everything from which rookie would be the first to crash a crusier to how long it will be until Sam and Andy are caught fucking in the locker room—it’s the idea that Holly is talking about her to her friends. Gail doesn’t exactly do girl talk.

“You should probably buy the next round, since you lost me money,” Holly says, like there’s nothing weird about the situation.

Gail doesn’t comment, just waves down the waiter for another weird wheat beer and another martini. She stumbles through the next few minutes of conversation; most of her brain power wondering what else Holly has said about her, and the rest berating herself for being so pathetic.

-

After an hour and a half, they’ve talked so much they only made it through two drinks. Gail’s skin is buzzing anyway, her ankle pressed tight against Holly’s under the table.

“Can I walk you home?” Holly asks.

Gail nods and immediately slides out of the booth. Holly smirks.

It’s about ten blocks to her and Dov’s apartment. She wonders if Chris and Denise are still staying there, imagines all of their faces when she and Holly show up in the kitchen for breakfast the next morning. They shouldn’t be shocked—an embarrassing night of drunken Truth or Dare and a more embarrassing night of drunken Spin the Bottle back when they were fresh out of the academy probably made it clear Gail maybe isn’t 100% straight. Still, she expects the boys would waver between confusion, disbelief and arousal. She resolves to kick Dov in the balls the second he says something rude.

“This is me,” she says, tilting her head toward their building.

“Thanks for coming tonight,” Holly says. “It was great.”

“I didn’t end up dying or breaking any bones, so I guess I don’t mind that you took me to the batting cages.”

Holly laughs and kisses her, one hand on her face.

Every time they’ve kissed, Gail has been surprised. There’s just no preamble, no slow lean in. Holly wants to kiss her, and so she does. Gail doesn’t have the same nonchalance; she opens and closes her fists against her own thighs instead of threading her fingers into Holly’s ponytail. When they break apart, Holly is smiling like there’s a joke Gail’s not in on. It takes Gail a minute to get her brain to make words. (That might be the joke.)

“Are you coming up or what?”

Holly shrugs. “I’m an old fashioned girl.”

“Really? Because I don’t think old fashioned girls went around kissing other girls.”

“I wouldn’t be so certain,” she laughs. “Google vintage lesbians sometime.”

She turns and heads down the street. Gail feels like she did in the coat check—almost happy, but mostly confused. It’s like waking up from a really good dream and you want to go back to sleep but you can’t even remember what you were dreaming about. She’s pretty sure Holly plans it that way.

She’d be pissed if she weren’t kind of impressed.


End file.
